Topic: GekkoScience Compac BM1384 Stickminer Official Support Thread - page 9. (Read 268015 times)

Yeah, I have 2.1a/port so power draw shouldn't be an issue.  Just gonna +5/day until I either hit an error wall, or reach 300.

Until someone with more experience with stick OCing jumps in I guess you could try upping the frequency until you start getting HWs and then upping the vcore just enough to stop getting HWs.
The goal is, as I understood it, to have the lowest vcore possible for target frequency (with higher frequencies requiring higher voltage, obviously).

My Compac runs @ 312.5MHz with 1 HW error maybe every 2 days. Decent USB charging hub that is supposed to provide up to 2.5A per-port groups, 7 ports for total of 60W. It's also feeds 2x of Sidehack's (Gekko)  2PAC sticks

Yes, even with a fan blowing on them they are quite warm but then again, seems mining ASICS love high temps.

As a day-1 newbie, I can tell you that a hub with a supplemental usb-powered fan makes all the difference in the world.  I am currently running (4) of these little guys in an 10-port powered Anker hub with zero errors at 275Mhz, 15gH/s each.  Haven't used my voltmeter yet, but the sinks and PCB under the chip are very warm but not hot at all.  Going to up the freq +5MHz daily until I draw errors or hit 300MHz, whichever comes first.

This forum, along with the README for cgminer made it surprisingly simple.

Depends how much power each port supplies. Depending on how much it is, a Y cable might be required to provide enough power to the ASIC. After that 300mhz+ is easily reachable provided you have the right frequency settings.

Regarding HW errors: 

- How long should I give my current 275MHz OC before upping the freq even more? 
- I have zero errors so far after a couple of hours. 

My goal is 300MHz.

Thanks, all!

And with a little voltage adjustment, up to 275MHz.  They are warm but not hot - the fan is doing it's job.

https://i.imgur.com/JwnQZBb.png

So... new to the forum and the Bitcoin lottery chase, and I wanted to say thanks to everyone here for being such a great resource!!!

I took me only 45 minutes to set up my 4 sticks in my Anker hub w/usb fan (under my home-studio worktable).  Using cgminer 4.10 after Zadig-ing my sticks.  Created a simple windows batch file to run from.  Currently at 225Mhz nice and cool.  Monitoring for a week or so and then may overclock even further.

https://i.imgur.com/eaDaL0o.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/hSxn9Er.png

Again - I found everything I needed right here - just too cool.

to be honest it's probably not even worth it.. you dont need xnsub to mine on NH.

Hello WBF1, would it be possible to share how you patched cgminer with xnsub or is there any step by step guide you can point me to, I'm new in all of this and still couldn't figure out how to patch. i'm trying to use on nicehash.com

That sounds about like it's supposed to behave. Glad you got it sorted.

cgminer sorted out.

vcore was way up at 0.78v (meter designed for MUCH higher voltages and currents; only reads to two decimals; first I've ever seen decimals on it - don't usually worry about them when dealing with 6kvAC or 300vDC). Dialed the pot down and was gratified to see the voltage drop. Settled on 0.60v at 150MHz, 8.1-ish GH/s 0HWerr. The heat sink is still too hot to touch for more than 15 or 20 seconds, but I have heat sensitive fingers. I don't have a reliable way to measure the temp but I feel comfortable leaving it here for passive cooling. I'm still hoping moving it to hub with known power ratings will help.

Okay, now I understand what you were looking for on cgminer. Yeah I had the same problem a couple weeks ago while setting up test stations for production 2Pacs.

bfgminer behaved as expected. I did get cgminer TUI sorted. Apparently libncurses had been removed during an autoremove sequence. Oops.


It's on the list but even if ordered today, it's unlikely to arrive before I fly out to work. :sigh: That means it'll have to wait until I get home in December for troubleshooting unless the powered hub I have coming sorts it out, which is possible but unlikely.

As soon as cgminer finishes compiling, I'll get some vcore measurements and fiddle with the pot to see what happens.

I've never used BFG so I honestly don't know what you're asking for. CGminer runs pretty much entirely on command-line flags with a basic menu as documented in the README files.

I recommend purchasing a USB power meter that'll display how much current the stick is eating while running. Sounds to me like it's drawing way too much power. For reference I have a stick here cooking at 4.2W and it's too hot to hold onto for very long but not too hot to touch. Appropriate stable voltage for 100MHz should not be uncomfortable. Given the stick is running hot but also throwing errors, I'd consider the voltage is stuck on too-high and it's been run hot for too long so the ASIC is just about dead.

For now, I just want to get it set up for unattended passive cooling so I can goof with it more when I get back home in December. I imagine this will be easier when my hub arrives. It's likely to provide better power.

Also, this is probably the wrong sub-forum to ask this, but how do I get the TUI in cgminer? Both the vh- fork and stock ckolivas give me readouts similar to cpuminer and doesn't accept the menu commands. libncurses5-dev is properly installed (was needed to compile bfgminer). bfgminer displays as per screenshots I've seen posted.

600mV is about right for 100MHz up to maybe 150. Also I misspoke - they're tested to 200MHz at 640-660mV before shipping. A Vcore of 0.6 at 200MHz will return nothing but errors.

Regarding grounding, it depends what you mean by "external reference ground". As long as it's tied to local ground of the stick, it's ground. The Reset pad just need to be taken below about 1V and the chip will reset. This isn't tied into hashing at all though, so it's entirely possible (indeed likely) it won't reinitialize correctly and start hashing.

Adjusting the pot doesn't seem to have any heat affects. I'll get some measurements soon and reset accordingly. At freq 150-200, vcore should be in the neighborhood of 0.6, correct?

Edit: Now I feel silly. You had the voltages right in your reply. Disregard the above.

Edit 2: I don't recall the specs on this Delll Mini. It's likely I have plugged the compac into a USB1 port, which doesn't supply much in the way of power. I'll have to doublecheck calcs, but if this is USB1 that could be the whole heat/voltage thing right there.

[/edits]

Is it safe to ground the reset patch while the device is actively working and do I need to use the ground patch or can I use an external reference ground?


Okay. Taking a closer look at the Amazon listing, it's not the seller's name but a brand name listing with multiple sellers of used gear.


Unless these are becoming collector's devices, I'm seriously thinking about refrigerant-cooling. A water-cooling plate could fairly easily be converted for use as a cold-plate in a gas absorption type system. Ammonia is easy to come by. Not sure what I'd use as the external heat source, though. I may simply use the chip to boil the ammonia (and carry away the heat) with a fan-cooled radiator to "re-compress" (liquefy) the ammonia. Suitably sized compressors are likely to be impossible to find for "modern" refrigeration method.

Heat means power. Power means voltage times current; voltage is the pot adjustment, current is proportional to operating frequency. If it's too hot to touch at 100MHz the voltage is set way too high, because at optimum settings 100MHz should be about 2 watts.

I can't speak for used hardware, but when sticks ship from me they're tested to stable operation at 150MHz, usually voltage set between 640 and 660 millivolts. Over 660 and the ASIC gets replaced because it's running too hot. Nothing ships if it can't hash at <30 errors per hour and <660mV. If your stick can't do that there's probably something wrong with it.

Also, there is no "seller GekkoScience" on Amazon. GekkoScience (me) is the manufacturer but has never directly sold them on Amazon. Far as I know, about the only Amazon seller I've directly supplied was BitMiner Joe, aka CrazyGuy here on the forums.

Two days ago, I received my Compac (serial #GS-10003894) from seller GekkoScience on Amazon (shipper: Ultimate electronics outlet). I was a little surprised at how small it really is. I was very disappointed it came with no documentation, just the device nicely wrapped in bubble-stuff. Fortunately, I already knew about this thread and I spent much of the last two days reading it.

Of course, I couldn't resist also playing with while reading. I compiled bfgminer straight from git (5.4.2) and toodled right along. bfgminer because I wanted to watch what happened when I messed with freq without have to start and restart over and over again.

This poor little guy got too hot to hold my fingers on, even at 100MHz! I suspect it's a power supply thing. My poor little Dell Mini also got really hot right near the port it plugged into. I have a hub coming and I'll find out then. No voltage measurements, yet. Fiddling with the pot didn't seem to make any difference in HW error rate - over 2000 in 2hrs of run time at 150MHz.

I'm compiling vh-cgminer as I type. Maybe (unlikely) the heat has something to do with software. It won't hurt to let the power ramp up instead of spike, either.

I really wish I had known about the 2Pac when I ordered. For what I paid for this original, I could have ordered a pair of 2Pacs. (@sidehack, look for an email from me inquiring about them).


Edit: vh-cgminer doesn't do the TUI like ckolivas? Compiling stock cgminer to compare.